Northern Territory For Everyone: Fannie Bay

Fannie Bay

Fannie Bay is a middle/inner suburb of the city of Darwin, and one of the city's oldest. Situated in the suburb is the Fannie Bay Gaol museum, Fannie Bay Race Track and a monument to Ross Smith, captain of the Vickers Vimy that, in December 1919, was the first aircraft to fly from England to Australia in less than 30 days.

The airstrip that he took off from became Ross Smith Avenue, being named in his honour. At the end of Holtze Street is the original Qantas Airways hangar, built in 1934, on the site of the original airfield buildings. The hangar survived the Japanese air raids of World War of 1942, through the building was hit. Bullet holes from aerial machine gun fire are still visible in the beams of the hangar.

Adjoining the suburb is the East Point Reserve, containing Lake Alexander, a Military Museum and gun emplacements from the Second World War.

Fannie Bay is believed to have been named by the surveyors of Goyder's expedition to found the present day Darwin in 1868, after Fanny Carandini, a popular opera singer of the time. Fanny Carandini was the daughter of an exiled Italian Count, Count Gerome Carandini, tenth Marquise of Saranzo, who came to Hobart, Tasmania, in the 1840s and married Mary Burgess who became a noted opera singer.

Madame Carandini and her daughters Fanny, Rosina and Lizzie formed a famed singing group, travelling widely in Australia and overseas. In 1868 the Carandinis held concerts in Adelaide a month before the South Australian Surveyor-General, George Goyder, and his party set out in the 'Moonta' to found Palmerston (the present day Darwin). One of the concerts was a benefit night for Fanny Carandini and some of Goyder's surveyors would almost certainly have been there.

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The reason for the change in spelling is unclear. In his book Australasia and the Oceanic Region published in 1876, William Brackley Wildey wrote of the Palmerston of 1874 - "Palmerston is laid out in 1019 half-acre allotments, and extends nearly three miles across to Fanny Bay, so named by the surveyors after Miss Fanny Carandini - this is prettily and healthily situated, facing the ocean, about four miles from town, a little beyond the town boundary....." However, Hoare, one of Goyder's party on the expedition to Palmerston, wrote in his diary "March 1 (1869): Public Holiday. I went with Capt. Barneson & Dr Peel to Talc Point. Got some specimens of shells, talc and coral. I made a sketch of Fannie Bay, Point Emery....." Also, in the early maps of Darwin the spelling 'Fannie' was used."

One explanation for the confusion could be that the Carandinis changed the spelling of their names for promotional purposes. Although Fanny Carandini's death certificate reads 'Fanny', in newspaper reports and advertisements in her singing days the spelling 'Fannie' is used. Her mother appears to have done the same, changing her name from 'Mary' to 'Marie'. Goyder's surveyors would possibly have taken the version 'Fannie' name from a program or a poster advertising the Carandinis' concerts in Adelaide.

A great many places in the Northern Territory were named by John McDouall Stuart for members of the Chambers family, who sponsored his expeditions. Fanny (1841–1915) was the eldest daughter of John Chambers. It has been incorrectly recorded that Fannie Bay was named in her honour. Stuart, however, did name Fanny Creek and Mary Creek after another of John Chambers' daughters.